Monterey Car Week

This Is What The World's Most Opulent Weekend Looks Like (Hint: It's Filled With Luxury Cars)

Ahhhh, Pebble Beach. What Coachella is for the music-obsessed hipsteratti, Pebble Beach is for the G6 set. Meaning instead of headbands and crocheted bikinis, it’s Philippe Patek chronographs and seersucker suits. In the place of vodka Red Bulls and spicy pies, you get magnums of bubbling Krug and heaping plates of caviar. No, it’s not Arcade Fire taking center stage, but a 1924 Isotta Frashini cabriolet. Some of the details vary, but the hedonism, exhaustion, exhilaration and all-out mania are pretty much the same.

Officially known as Monterey Car Week, the perennial luxury automotive bacchanal still centers around the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance — a gathering of the finest classic and vintage machines the world has ever seen. But it’s more than simply an antique motor show, it’s a deep-dive into true luxurious living. Lexus, who played our hosts for the weekend, debuted two foundational vehicles for their fleet: the GS and LX SUV. BMW showed off their stunning Hommage R Concept, an homage to their legendary 1970’s 3.0 CSL (one of the greatest BMW’s of all time). Bentley teased its Bentayga — a vehicle so secret, we’re not allowed to write about it until September. Lamborghini even eschewed the big motor shows to lift the sheet on their 750-horsepower toupée destroyer, the Aventador SV Roadster. Five years ago these cars would make their world premiers at established auto shows; now they’re delivered at Pebble — where their customers actually sip and mingle.

Like last year, we were invited to take in the sites, sounds and cylinder vibrations of the Pebble Beach weekend and deliver to you a full formed recap of the hijinx. See the festivities below, in all their gleaming red glory…

The Lineup

If a picture says a thousand words, this was the vehicular line-up at the valet of the Inn Of the Spanish Bay when we arrived: a Pagani Huayra, Porsche 918, McLaren P1 and two Ferrari LaFerraris — a car so rare you cannot even buy one if you are a billionaire, you have to be invited by the lords at Ferrari. And they had a pair.